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As Big Tech builds AI data centers at record pace, carbon emissions are set to skyrocket

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Welcome to Eye on AI! In this edition...Ilya Sutskever says he is now CEO of Safe Superintelligence…Chinese AI companies erode U.S. dominance…Meta’s AI talent bidding war heats up…Microsoft’s sales overhaul goes all-in on AI.

As an early-summer heat wave blanketed my home state of New Jersey last week, it felt like perfect timing to stumble across a sobering new prediction from Accenture: AI data centers’ carbon emissions are on track to surge 11-fold by 2030.

The report estimates that over the next five years, AI data centers could consume 612 terawatt-hours of electricity—roughly equivalent to Canada’s total annual power consumption—driving a 3.4% increase in global carbon emissions.

And the strain doesn’t stop at the power grid. At a time when freshwater resources are already under severe pressure, AI data centers are also projected to consume more than 3 billion cubic meters of water per year—a volume that surpasses the annual freshwater withdrawals of entire countries like Norway or Sweden.

Unsurprisingly, the report—Powering Sustainable AI—offers recommendations for how to rein in the problem and prevent those numbers from becoming reality. But with near-daily headlines about Big Tech’s massive AI data center buildouts across the U.S. and worldwide, I can’t help but feel cynical. The urgent framing of an AI race against China doesn’t seem to leave much room—or time—for serious thinking about sustainability.

Just yesterday, for example, OpenAI agreed to rent a massive amount of computing power from Oracle data centers as part of its Stargate initiative, which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. The additional capacity from Oracle totals about 4.5 gigawatts of data center power in the U.S., according to Bloomberg reporting. A gigawatt is akin to the capacity from one nuclear reactor and can provide electricity to roughly 750,000 houses. 

And this week, Meta was reported to be seeking to raise $29 billion from private capital firms to build AI data centers in the U.S., while already building a $10 billion AI data center in Northeast Louisiana. As part of that deal, the local utility, Entergy, will supply three new power plants. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made his intentions clear: The U.S. must rapidly expand AI data center construction or risk falling behind China in the race for AI dominance. Speaking on the Dwarkesh Podcast in May, he warned that America’s edge in artificial intelligence could erode unless it keeps pace with China’s aggressive build-out of data center capacity and factory-scale hardware.

“The U.S. really needs to focus on streamlining the ability to build data centers and produce energy,” Zuckerberg said. “Otherwise, we’ll be at a significant disadvantage.”

The U.S. government seems to be aligned with that sense of urgency. David Sacks, now serving as the White House AI and Crypto Czar, has also underscored that energy and data center expansion are central to America’s AI strategy—leaving little room for sustainability concerns.

On his All In podcast in February, Sacks argued that Washington’s “go-slow” approach to AI could strangle the industry. He emphasized that the U.S. needs to clear the way for infrastructure and energy development—including AI data centers—to keep pace with China.

In late May, he went further, saying that streamlining permitting and expanding power generation are essential for AI’s future—something he claimed has been “effectively impossible under the Biden administration.” His message: the U.S. needs to race to build faster.

Accenture, meanwhile, is urging its clients to responsibly grow and engineer its AI data centers in a bid to balance growth with environmental responsibility. It is offering a new metric, that it calls the Sustainable AI Quotient (SAIQ), to measure the true costs of AI in terms of money invested, megawatt-hours of energy consumed, tons of CO₂ emitted and cubic meters of water used. The firm’s report says the metric will help organizations answer a basic question: “What are we actually getting from the resources we’re investing in AI?” and allow that enterprise to measure its performance across time.

I spoke to Matthew Robinson, managing director of Accenture Research and co-author of the report, who emphasized that he hoped Accenture’s sobering predictions would be proven wrong. “They kind of take your breath away,” he said, explaining that Accenture modeled future energy consumption from the expected number of installed AI chips adjusted for utilization and the additional energy requirements of data centers. That data was combined with regional data on electricity generation, energy mix and emissions, while water use was assessed based on AI data center energy consumption and how much water is consumed per unit of electricity generated.

“The point really is to open the conversation around the actions that are available to avert this pathway—we don’t want to be right here,” he said. He would not comment on the actions of specific companies like OpenAI or Meta, but said that overall, clearly more effort is needed to avert the rise in carbonisation fueled by AI data centers while still allowing for growth. 

Accenture’s recommendations certainly make sense: Optimize the power efficiency of AI workloads and data centers with everything from low-carbon energy options to cooling innovations. Use AI thoughtfully, by choosing smaller AI models, and better pricing models for incentivizing efficiency. And ensure better governance over AI sustainability initiatives. 

It’s hard to imagine that the biggest players in the race for AI dominance—Big Tech giants and heavily funded startups—will hit the brakes long enough to seriously address these growing concerns. Not that it’s impossible. Take Google, for example: In its latest sustainability report released this week, the company revealed that its data centers are consuming more power than ever. In 2024, Google used approximately 32.1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity, with a staggering 95.8%—about 30.8 million MWh—consumed by its data centers. That’s more than double the energy its data centers used in 2020, just before the consumer AI boom.

Still, Google emphasized that it’s making meaningful strides toward cleaning up its energy supply, even as demand surges. The company said it cut its data center energy emissions by 12% in 2024, thanks to clean energy projects and efficiency upgrades. And it’s squeezing more out of every watt. Google reported that the amount of compute per unit of electricity has increased about six-fold over the past five years. Its power usage effectiveness (PUE)—a key measure of data center efficiency—is now approaching the theoretical minimum of 1.0, with a reported PUE of 1.09 in 2024.

“Just speaking personally, I’d be optimistic,” said Robinson.

Note: Check out this new Fortune video about my tour of IBM’s quantum computing test lab. I had a fabulous time hanging out at IBM’s Yorktown Heights campus (a midcentury modern marvel designed by the same guy as the St. Louis Arch and the classic TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport) in New York. The video was part of my coverage for this year’s Fortune 500 issue that included an article that dug deep into IBM’s recent rebound.

As I said in my piece, “walking through the IBM research center is like stepping into two worlds at once. There are the steel and glass curves of Saarinen’s design, punctuated by massive walls made of stones collected from the surrounding fields, with original Eames chairs dotting discussion nooks. But this 20th-century modernism contrasts starkly with the sleek, massive, refrigerator-like quantum computer—among the most advanced in the world—that anchors the collaboration area and working lab, where it whooshes with the steady hum of its cooling system.”

With that, here’s the rest of the AI news.

Sharon Goldman
sharon.goldman@fortune.com
@sharongoldman

AI IN THE NEWS

Ilya Sutskever says he is now CEO of Safe Superintelligence, after Daniel Gross steps down to join Meta. Ilya Sutskever, the former OpenAI chief scientist who founded Safe Superintelligence (SSI) with Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy a year ago, confirmed that he will now serve as SSI’s CEO after Daniel Gross stepped down. Sustkever posted on X saying: “Daniel Gross’s time with us has been winding down, and as of June 29 he is officially no longer a part of SSI. We are grateful for his early contributions to the company and wish him well in his next endeavor. I am now formally CEO of SSI, and Daniel Levy is President. The technical team continues to report to me. ⁠You might have heard rumors of companies looking to acquire us. We are flattered by their attention but are focused on seeing our work through.” Meta was rumored to have sought to acquire the $32 billion-valued SSI.

Chinese AI companies erode U.S. dominance. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese artificial intelligence companies are gaining ground globally, challenging U.S. supremacy and intensifying a potential AI arms race. Across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, organizations—from multinational banks like HSBC and Standard Chartered to Saudi Aramco—are increasingly adopting large language models from Chinese firms such as DeepSeek and Alibaba as alternatives to U.S. offerings like ChatGPT. Even American cloud giants like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google now offer access to DeepSeek’s models, despite U.S. government security restrictions on the company’s apps. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT still leads in global adoption—with 910 million downloads versus DeepSeek’s 125 million—Chinese models are undercutting U.S. competition by offering nearly comparable performance at much lower prices.

Meta’s AI talent bidding war heats up. As Mark Zuckerberg rapidly staffs up Meta’s new superintelligence lab, his company has reportedly offered some OpenAI researchers eye-popping pay packages of up to $300 million over four years, with more than $100 million in first-year compensation, Wired reports. The offers, which include immediate stock vesting, have been extended to at least 10 OpenAI employees, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. While Meta’s aggressive recruiting tactics have caught the attention of top talent, some OpenAI staffers told Wired they’re weighing the massive payouts against their potential impact at Meta versus staying at OpenAI. A Meta spokesperson pushed back, claiming reports of the offer sizes are exaggerated. Still, even Meta’s senior engineers typically make around $850,000 per year, with those in higher pay bands earning over $1.5 million annually, according to Levels.FYI data.

Microsoft’s sales overhaul goes all-in on AI. Microsoft’s sales chief, Judson Althoff, is reshaping the company’s sales organization to double down on AI, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider. Althoff’s Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) unit will now focus on embedding Copilot across devices and roles, deepening Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 adoption, winning high-impact AI deals, expanding Azure cloud migration, and strengthening cybersecurity to support AI growth. The memo, sent just one day before Microsoft’s latest round of layoffs—many of which affected Althoff’s sales teams—outlined his vision to make Microsoft “the Frontier AI Firm.” According to Business Insider, this restructuring follows Althoff’s earlier plan to cut the number of sales solution areas in half starting this fiscal year.

FORTUNE ON AI

The new CEO flex: Bragging that AI handles exactly X% of the work —by Sharon Goldman

Sam Altman scoffs at Mark Zuckerberg’s AI recruitment drive and says Meta hasn’t even got their ‘top people’ —by Beatrice Nolan

Figma files for IPO nearly two years after $20 billion Adobe buyout fell through —by Allie Garfinkle

AI CALENDAR

July 8-11: AI for Good Global Summit, Geneva

July 13-19: International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Vancouver

July 22-23: Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore. Apply to attend here.

July 26-28: World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), Shanghai. 

Sept. 8-10: Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Park City, Utah. Apply to attend here.

Oct. 6-10: World AI Week, Amsterdam

Dec. 2-7: NeurIPS, San Diego

Dec. 8-9: Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.

EYE ON AI NUMBERS

$65 Billion

That’s how much U.S. investment in AI companies soared to in the first quarter of this year—a 33% jump from the previous quarter and a staggering 550% increase compared to the quarter before ChatGPT’s 2022 debut, according to PitchBook.

The biggest price tag? Data centers.

 The New York Times reports that Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google plan to spend a combined $320 billion on infrastructure this year—more than double what they spent just two years ago. A huge chunk of that will go toward building new data centers to keep up with the exploding demand for AI.



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MacKenzie Scott tries to close the higher ed DEI gap, giving away $155 million this week alone

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December 5, 2025

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MacKenzie Scott has arguably been the biggest name in philanthropy this year—and has nonstop been making major gifts to organizations focused on education, DEI, disaster recovery, and many other causes.

This week alone, several higher education institutions announced major gifts from the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—donations totaling well over $100 million. In true Scott fashion, many of these donations are the largest single donations these schools have ever received.

The donations announced this week include: 

  • $50 million to California State University-East Bay
  • $50 million to Lehman College (part of the City University of New York system)
  • $38 million to Texas A&M University-Kingsville
  • $17 million to Seminole State College

All four institutions are public, access-oriented colleges that enroll large shares of low‑income, first‑generation, and racially diverse students and function as minority‑serving institutions or similar engines of social mobility. They fit MacKenzie Scott’s broader pattern of directing large, unrestricted gifts to colleges that serve “chronically underserved” communities rather than already wealthy, highly selective universities.

Scott, who is worth about $40 billion and has donated over $20 billion in the past five years, has doubled down this year on causes that the Trump administration has cut deeply, such as education, DEI, and disaster recovery.

“As higher education, in general, works to find its way in an uncertain environment, this gift is a major source of encouragement that we are on the right path,” Lehman College President Fernando Delgado said in a statement. 

Scott also made one of the largest donations in HBCU Howard University’s 158-year history with an $80 million gift earlier this fall, and a $60 million donation to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy after Trump administration’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—an organization Americans rely on for help during and after hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods.

“All sectors of society—public, private, and social—share responsibility for helping communities thrive after a disaster,” CDP president and CEO Patricia McIlreavy previously told Fortune. “Philanthropy plays a critical role in providing communities with resources to rebuild stronger, but it cannot—and should not—replace government and its essential responsibilities.”

Trust-based philanthropy

Scott accumulated the vast majority of her wealth from her 2019 divorce from Bezos, but is dedicated to giving away most of her fortune. She’s considered a unique philanthropist in today’s environment because her gifts are typically unrestricted, meaning the organizations can use the funding however they choose. 

“She practices trust-based philanthropy,” Anne Marie Dougherty, CEO of the Bob Woodruff Foundation previously told Fortune. Scott has donated $15 million to the veteran-focused nonprofit organization in 2022, and made a subsequent $20 million donation this fall.

Scott is also considered one of the most generous philanthropists, and credits acts of kindness for inspiring her to give back.

“It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college,” Scott wrote of her inspiration for philanthropy in an Oct. 15 essay published to her Yield Giving site. “It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out in my sophomore year.”



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Netflix’s bombshell deal to buy Warner Bros. brings Batman and Harry Potter to the streamer, infuriates theater owners and the Ellisons

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December 5, 2025

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Netflix’s agreement to buy Warner Bros. in a $72 billion deal marks a seismic shift in Hollywood, handing the streaming giant control of iconic franchises such as Batman and Harry Potter and triggering an immediate backlash from theater owners and the jilted Ellison family behind Paramount. The bombshell transaction, struck after a bidding war that ensued after David Ellison’sunsolicited bids several months ago, positions Netflix ever more at the center of the Southern California entertainment business that the Northern California company disrupted so famously decades ago.​

The deal will see Netflix acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and TV studios and its streaming operations, including HBO Max, in a deal with an equity value of roughly $72 billion, or about $27.75 per share in cash and stock, valuing Warner Bros. at $82.7 billion. The agreement followed a heated auction in which Netflix’s bid edged out offers from Paramount Skydance and Comcast, both of which had pushed to keep the storied Warner assets in more traditional hands.

Two days before Netflix won the bidding, Paramount hinted at its fury with a strongly worded letter to WBD CEO David Zaslav, arguing the process was “tainted” and Warner Bros. was favoring a single bidder: Netflix. Paramount called it a “myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder,” Bloomberg reported, although Netflix’s bid is understood to be the highest of the three.

Another angry group is theater owners, who have famously warred with Netflix for years over the big red streamer’s reluctance, even refusal to follow traditional theatrical-release practices. Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has adamantly defended Netflix’s streaming-forward distribution, saying it’s what consumers really want. At the Time 100 event in April of this year, Sarandos called theatrical release “an outmoded idea for most people” and said Netflix was “saving Hollywood” by giving people what they want: streaming at home.

Cinema United, the trade association which represents over 30,000 movie screens in the U.S. and 26,000 internationally, immediately announced its opposition to Netflix acquiring a legacy Hollywood studio. The organization’s chief, Michael O’Leary, said it “poses an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business” as Netflix’s states business model simply does not support theatrical exhibition. He urged regulators to look closely at the acquisition.

Deadline reported that other producers are warning of “the death of Hollywood” as a result of this deal. Several days earlier, Bank of America Research’s analysts had surveyed the landscape and concluded that as a defensive move, Netflix would be “killing three birds with one stone,” as its ownership of Warner Bros’ would be a daunting blow to Paramount and Comcast, while taking the Warner legacy studio out of the running. The bank calculated that a combined Netflix and Warner Bros. would comprise roughly 21% of total streaming time—still shy of YouTube’s 28% hold on the market, but far greater than Paramount’s 5% and Comcast’s 4%.

What’s known and what’s still at play

As part of the deal, Netflix will retain the studio that controls the superheroes of DC, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and HBO’s prestige brands. Other details on what will happen to the standalone streaming service HBO Max were scant, with the companies saying only that Netflix will “maintain” Warner Bros. current operations. The companies expect the transaction to close after regulatory review, with Netflix projecting billions in annual cost savings by the third year after completion.

​The deal will not include all of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to the press release announcing the acquisition, which said the previously announced plans to separate WBD’s cable operations will be completed before the Netflix deal, in the third quarter of 2026. The newly separated publicly traded company holding the Global Networks division will be called Discovery Global, and will include CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., as well as Discovery, free-to-air channels across Europe, plus digital products such as Discovery+ and Bleacher Report.  

On a conference call with reporters Friday morning, Sarandos said Netflix is “highly confident in the regulatory process,” calling the deal pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, pro-creator and pro-growth. He said Netflix planned to work closely with regulators and was running “full speed” ahead toward getting all regulatory approvals. He added that Netflix executives were “tired” after “an incredibly rigorous and competitive process.” Alluding to Netflix’s traditional resistance to big M&A, Sarandos added that “we don’t do many of these, but we were deep in this one.”

Influential entertainment journalist Matt Belloni of Puck previewed the likely deal on Bill Simmons’ podcast on Spotify’s Ringer network (which recently struck a deal to bring some video podcasts to Netflix), and they speculated about potential problems inside Netflix that brought the deal to a head. In conversation about how defensive the move is, Belloni said Netflix is “doing this for a reason” and may have reached a “stress point” because it hasn’t been getting traction with its own moviemaking efforts after 10 years of trying. (Netflix has also been agonizingly close to an elusive Best Picture Oscar, with close calls on Roma and Emilia Perez, the latter of which was derailed in a bizarre social-media controversy.) Belloni also acknowledged the criticism that Netflix has struggled to create its own franchises, also after years of trying.

Sarandos highlighted Netflix’s homegrown franchises while announcing the deal, arguing that Netflix’s ” culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game” will now combine with Warner’s deep library including classics Casablanca and Citizen Kane, even Friends.

The biggest losers in the bidding war may be David Ellison and his father, Oracle co‑founder (and long-time Republican donor)Larry Ellison, whose Paramount‑Skydance empire had been widely seen as a front‑runner to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. David Ellison, has since reportedly been pleading his case around Washington, meeting Trump administration officials as allies float antitrust and national‑interest concerns about giving Netflix control of such a critical studio.

While Netflix has tried to calm regulators by arguing that a combined Netflix–HBO Max bundle would increase competition with Disney and others, the Ellisons and their supporters are signaling they will continue to press for tougher scrutiny or even intervention. Large M&A has made a big comeback in 2025 as the Trump administration has been notably friendlier to big deals than the deep freeze of the Biden administration, making this deal an acid test for just how true that is when a company with deep ties to the White House gets jilted.​

[Disclosure: The author worked internally at Netflix from June 2024 through July 2025.]



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Elon Musk and Bill Gates are wrong about AI imminently replacing all jobs. ‘That’s not what we’re seeing,’ LinkedIn exec slams

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The future of work as we know it is hanging by a thread—at least, that’s what many tech leaders consistently say. Elon Musk predicts AI will replace all jobs in less than 20 years. Bill Gates says even those who train to use AI tools may not be safe from its claws. And then there’s Klarna’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who is even warning workers that “tech bros” are sugarcoating just how badly it’s about to impact jobs.

But according to one LinkedIn exec, that’s simply not what the data is showing. 

With hundreds of millions of workers hunting for jobs and employers posting open roles in real time, LinkedIn acts as one of the clearest barometers of what’s actually happening on the ground—and its managing director for EMEA, Sue Duke, is not buying the AI apocalypse narrative.

“That’s not what we’re seeing,” Duke revealed at the Fortune CEO Forum in The Shard in London. When asked about an AI-induced hiring slowdown she insisted that the opposite is actually true. 

“What we’re seeing is that organizations who are adopting and integrating this technology, they’re actually going out and hiring more people to really take advantage of this technology,” Duke explained. 

“They’re going out and looking for more business development people, more technologically savvy people, and more sales people as they realize the business opportunities, the innovation possibilities, and ultimately the growth possibilities of this technology.”

For the millions of job seeking Gen Zers—who keep being told that entry-level jobs are about the get swallowed by AI and that a youth unemployment crisis is well underway—the news will be a welcome surprise.

LinkedIn exec breaks down exactly what employers are looking for from new hires in 2026

For those looking to make the most of the job market’s shift, Duke says there are two key areas to upskill in.

The first, no surprise one, is AI skills. Whether that’s literacy, tooling, prompt-writing, or more technical capabilities, “we continue to see those AI skills being red, red hot in the labor market,” she said. 

With companies racing to integrate automation into products and workflows, that demand isn’t cooling anytime soon—no matter what industry you’re looking to work in. “We see a huge demand for those skills across the board, economy-wide, across all sectors, and tons of companies looking for those,” Duke added.

As AI takes over many administrative tasks, it’s putting the spotlight on job functions that bots can’t do. “Those unique human skills,” Duke said, is the second area of focus for employers. “They remain rock solid, constant at the heart of hiring desires and demands out there. They’re not going away either.”

She called out communication, team building, and problem solving, as some of those human skills that will stand the test of time: “They’re the ones to invest in.”

And ultimately, the skill employers are zeroing in on most isn’t technical at all—it’s adaptability. Bosses know the tools will change faster than job titles. What they want is someone who can change with them.

“The most important thing for job seekers to think about is the mindset that you’re also bringing to the table,” Duke concluded. 

“What employers are really looking for is that growth mindset and understanding that this technology is moving very, very quickly, and we need adaptability. Adaptability is right at the top of those most in-demand skills, so making sure you’re bringing that mindset, bringing that agility with you, that’s going to be hugely important.”



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